Saturday, August 27, 2011

My stand on military spending: cut it back!

It’s time to end the madness! America spends more money on it’s military than any other country in the world. I’m firmly for big cutbacks and pulling some war hawks feathers!

The Defense Department has just released its annual assessment of China’s military capabilities and development to Congress. The report is being covered in much of the media as a dire warning to the United States warning of the looming threat of Chinese military expansion.

The reaction to this report is typical of Republican war hawks: “We need more weapons!”

But consider this:

The US defense budget is six times as large as annual Chinese military spending. The following graphic from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute chronicling U.S. defense spending from 1989 to 2008 visualizes this:

While China’s military spending remains far eclipsed by that of the United States, there is one area where it is besting the United States: investing in clean energy. China invests twice as much money in clean energy as the United States, and for every dollar it spends on clean energy, it spends two to three dollars on defense. In the United States, every clean energy dollar is paired with 41 dollars of military spending.

So it safe to say we’ve been spending plenty. Too much. That is unless our real government’s aim is to dominate the world. For too many decades we’ve been “protecting our interests” by overthrowing over governments and placing our troops in countries throughout the world.

By the year’s end, we’ll be in 120 countries with our ongoing military operations. That’s just insane! I rate making military cuts among my top three goals if elected president.